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(1707–91),

Selina Hastings, foundress of the body of Calvinistic Methodists known as ‘the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion’. She joined the Wesleys' Methodist society in 1739. She supported Methodist ministers by constituting them her chaplains, but her contention that she could, as a peeress, appoint to the rank of chaplain as many priests of the C of E as she wished, and employ them publicly, was disallowed by the consistory court of London in 1779. She then registered her chapels as dissenting places of worship under the Toleration Act; she formed them into an association in 1790. Many of her followers were absorbed into Congregationalism; by 2003 there were about 750 adult members.